Measuring the effects of online-to-offline marketing

Abstract

Due to the competitiveness of the e-commerce environment and the emerging usage of mobile devices, companies have found a new e-marketing strategy, that is, online-to-offline (O2O) marketing, to integrate both channels more efficiently. The rapid rise of the O2O market in recent years has changed the way people consume and become an important issue. However, there are still very few studies focusing on O2O marketing issues. Hence, the purpose of this study is to develop an analytic model to explore how consumers adopt O2O commerce models. In this study, we collect 1,267 samples of valid Taiwan-based internet users who intended to adopt multi-channel retailing, using a web survey of consumers through InsightXplorer's CyberPanel. We use EFA and CFA to confirm search factors (information availability, search convenience, enjoyment, media richness and tangibility) and purchase factors (service quality, price and promotion, purchase convenience, risk perception, immediacy and product quantity) in keeping with past research. We also conduct a multinomial logit model to analyze the relationships among search factors, purchase factors, and adopting multi-channel purchasing behavior. The results indicate that the main reason consumers choose to purchase through physical channels is that they could provide better sales service quality and have a lower shopping risk, however, if consumers care about prices and promotions, they tend to lean towards the Mobile path. At the close of this paper, in-depth discussions and conclusions are provided to inform further research and future practices.